Mating Habits
by Mad Maudlin
Summary: Ron and Harry are mates.


Mating Habits

by Mad Maudlin

for Schocolate

"What are you doing for Valentine's Day?" Hermione asks, and Ron says,

"Erm,"

(He wasn't aware they were supposed to do anything. Girls did things on Valentine's Day. Couples did things. His parents did things.),

"nothing special." Hermione nods like it all makes sense, but Ron worries.

He worries because Harry is not a girl and they are not his parents and that only leaves one category on the list. Couple. Couple. It sounds sort of like "cuppa" when he says it quickly, several times, under his breath, until the people walking past him start to stare--but he knows that Harry is not tea. Harry is a bloke. Harry is a mate. Ron's mate. Which taken out of context makes them sound like a couple of, I dunno, stoats, or owls, or--don't wolves mate for life? Animals mate. Harry is a mate. It's totally different.

It's different from everything and Ron doesn't now how to quantify what It is, aside from a thing worth a capital letter. It always makes sense when they are kissing and touching and groping and frotting, when he's moving inside Harry or--Merlin--Harry inside him, all sweat and friction and want and rut. Rut. Animals rut. But they are not animals, Harry and him.

Is there a Harry-and-him?

Ron's not sure there's an It when they aren't shagging, that's the thing. Because they live in different flats and work at different jobs and play rowdy apple Quidditch behind the Burrow on Sundays, and that's normal. That's a matey sort of thing to do. Ron doesn't think about It when he and Harry are hanging about the twins' shop or having lunch at the Leaky Cauldron or all the other matey things they do. Just, when they're alone, or sometimes when they're drunk, or the odd early afternoon when they're just hanging out and being mates, well, there It is, and there they go.

They. Them. Harrynron. His mum used to call them that. His mum doesn't know about It.

And what's Hermione know, anyway? She just caught them at It, the afternoon variety, and apparently assumes--well. She clearly didn't understand It. Less than Ron did, even, which was a first. He and Harry shag. He and Harry are mates. Clearly it's working for them, even if it's confusing as hell. It's only confusing if he thinks about it too long.

So why'd Hermione have to go and throw fucking Valentine's Day into the mess?

-/--/--/-

"Got anything planned for Valentine's Day?" Fred asks Harry and Harry says,

"Nnnah,"

(and Ron blinks at the thought and hopes his ears aren't turning colors),

"not rea--" Harry coughes into his napkin, "not really. Sorry, swallowed wrong."

George snorts. "Don't tell me you can't reel in a date, of all people!"

"Not can't," Harry says, and pokes at his chips, "won't."

"Won't?"

"Don't feel like it."

Ron is looking at Harry and Harry is looking at his chips, and Fred pats George's shoulder. "He must be feeling ill. Only explanation."

"Would you like a hot compress, Harry? Some pepper-up potion? A blow to the head?"

"Let him alone," says Ron, or maybe says It and Ron's mouth was just convenient. His ears are mostly definitely red by now, but Harry looks up.

George snorts. "No need asking what you'll be up to, little brother. When was the last time you talks to a girl?"

"And family doesn't count. Nor Hermione."

Ron clears his throat but It has gone and left him in a lurch, just like every time, when the shagging is over. "'Snone of your business," he mutters.

Fred tisks. "You're going to die an old maid, Ronald."

"Lest he won't die of the clap like you two," Harry says, and his eyes leave Ron, and the twins are so busy being offended the topic doesn't come back.

(Ron has not dated a girl since the onset of It and he doesn't think Harry has either. They look and oggle and talk about it like mates, but don't actual do anything, and suddenly he thinks that maybe that means something.)

-/--/--/-

Harry doesn't talk about It and Ron doesn't talk about It and on Valentine's day it's still a question.

Ron walks home through Diagon Alley and looks at the flowers and the sweets and the cards. He look at the lacy undergarments in Madame Malkin's window. He tries to imagine Harry wearing a lacy undergarment. No. Harry wears solid-colored boxer shorts and vests that hang a little too loose. Madame Malkin probably doesn't make boxers out of lace.

Everything costs an arm and a leg so Ron leaves, eventually, but he does buy liquor. Wine. He is not generally a wine-drinking sort of person and he has to tell Tom to just give him something cheap and red and not too fruity, so he ends up with what is allegedly a Merlot so dry it makes his eyes water. He could polish his mum's silver with the stuff. He puts the cork back in the bottle and turns on the wireless, but somehow Celestina Warbeck is on every station except the one that gives the shipping forecast.

So Ron sits alone with his undrinkable wine and listens to the shipping forecast for a while, wondering if this is the matey sort of thing to do.

Harry doesn't knock when he comes in, just shoulders the door open and sets the take-away on the table. "Hi," he says.

"'Lo," Ron says.

"What's up?"

"Rain in the German Bight."

"Oh. Well."

Ron turns off the wireless and looks at the take-away. He waits for It but It's nowhere to be seen. "Big line at Wang's?"

"Like you wouldn't believe." Harry frowns. "Is that wine?"

"Not really sure."

Harry agrees that Ron was duped into buying vinegar, but he transfigures a jug of pumpkin juice into cranberry and they make sangria--not optimal but at least the bottle doesn't go to waste. They eat Chinese food on the floor and there aren't any candles, but it's still Valentine's Day.

"Thanks," Ron says, "for the food and all."

"Thanks for the drinks."

They're not drunk. Well, Ron's not drunk. He chases a piece of carrot around the bottom of the carton. It's Valentine's Day and Harry brought him food, and if it had been any girl in the world--if Harry had gone to any girl in the world--hell, a certain percentage of blokes--well. It's Harry and he doesn't know what to think. And It isn't showing up to help.

"'Sgood," Ron says when they've finished eat. When he has finished and Harry has, too. Harry-and-him.

"Welcome," Harry says. And then: "This is okay, yeah?"

Ron looks around the flat, at Harry, at the food and the wine. Perfectly matey thing to do, really. Sort of. For a certain kind of mate.

"Yeah," Ron says, and leans in for a kiss, and wonders where this will all lead next.


End file.
